Specialized, Gifted Education
Westmount is the only K-12 congregated setting in Alberta for students who are gifted. The school serves approximately 1200 students who represent a broad range of diversity including race, sex, gender identity, gender expression, English as an Additional Language (EAL), special education needs (twice exceptional), under-achievement and high-achievement.
At Westmount, we look at giftedness “from the inside out.” What does this mean for us? It means we strive to first know and honour who our students are before we can help them become the best they can be.
Westmount embraces asynchronous development – uneven intellectual, physical, and emotional development. In average children, these three aspects of development progress at about the same rate. That is, the development is in “sync.” An average 3-year-old has the intellectual and physical abilities as well as the emotional maturity as most other 3-year-olds. However, in gifted children development of those areas can be out of “sync.” The gifted child’s intellectual development can be more advanced than her physical and emotional development, which progress at a different rate.
Westmount’s content and curriculum delivery are modified to account for this asynchrony, thus affecting the way the school implements instructional methods in particular circumstances.